


Feather Boy

by thebinarysunset (SeeingGhosts)



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Angst, Childhood, Gen, Jedi, Jedi Code, Jedi Training, Memories, Murder, Origin Story, Patricide, Rage
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-29
Updated: 2015-12-29
Packaged: 2018-05-10 05:32:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,956
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5572749
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SeeingGhosts/pseuds/thebinarysunset
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kylo Ren wasn't born dark, nor was he born Kylo Ren. But when the shadows spoke to him they could not be ignored. From child to apprentice to knight, the doubt always followed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. I.

They used to call him Feather Boy. His real name was Ben Solo, but the nickname was often used instead. It came from a somewhat dysfunctional droid who had mistaken his dark hair for raven feathers adorning the boy's head. The droid had referred to him as Feather Boy, and the name stuck. While the boy grew and tried to resent the name, he could not manage to cast it off. It was a part of him and a part of his life.

His childhood was not the most idyllic, but it was happy enough. Most of it was characterized by his love of a past that he had never really known. He adored the stories from his parents and anyone else who offered them up. Sometimes he would attempt to act them out, using whatever was in arm's reach as a lightsaber or an X-wing or even the Millenium Falcon itself.

But his parents were disturbed by his outbursts, far too destructive to be explained by pure childish emotion. They worried about how when they told stories, as they so often did, he always wanted more Darth Vader, more Death Star, more Empire, more, more, more. 

It disturbed Leia the most, as she could feel the shifting within him. He had been born grey, neutral, with equal potential to turn to the light or the dark. This dilemma was only made bigger by his heritage - he bore the name Solo and Skywalker blood. He grew with the stories, learning more and more about what it meant. It did not grant him peace - instead, he felt more as if he needed something to live up to. It was all too clear when he chose Darth Vader to pursue.

Thus Leia was the one who had the idea to send her son away to train under her brother and become a Jedi. She told Han before bringing it up to her son, but the boy eavesdropped on them when they spoke about it. He heard their concerns of how he was drawn to the dark side and how Luke could help him to move past it. Their son would be a Jedi, they decided. The decision had been made without him. 

Even though they did notice something amiss, neither Leia nor Han could hear the whispers chorusing through their son's mind. When he first heard it himself he could hardly believe what he was hearing. The voice was not soft or kind, but something drew him to it. He was promised power, a chance to be something more than son or nephew or Feather Boy. All he had to do was wait until to be given true guidance.

The shadows spoke to him when all else was silent. He felt eyes on him even when he was alone. But it didn't scare him. It didn't scare him nearly as much as the thought of leaving home forever to become a Jedi.

He more than likely would've said yes if he had been asked directly, but when the question was finally offered to him he knew that his opinion did not matter. Instead of feeling like a privilege, the chance of the lifetime, it felt like a sentence. It felt like a punishment, but he was not quite sure what for. 

But when the day finally came that he had to leave, he tried to suppress his fear. Han and Leia were trying to make the right decision and prevent their son from being led astray. They didn't know what more they could do but to send him to his uncle and train him to become a Jedi. They only knew that they had to let go in order to help him.

Leia cried. Han frowned. Feather Boy had tears glazing his eyes, but he kept his lips in a straight line and refused to swallow the lump in his throat. He was terrified to leave, terrified of anything but home and stories and all he knew. Becoming a Jedi was on a path that he could not foresee. He would be training with the Luke from the stories, yes, and he would be amongst several other apprentices. That was the extent of what he knew, and it terrified him.

But it was not his decision. How little control he had. 

He decided, in those moments before he left forever, to cast away the name Feather Boy. The name had been fading as he grew older, but now was the time to fully turn it away. Feather Boy would float away on the wind, and he would go off to become a Jedi. From the moment he left home, he was gone.


	2. II.

He murdered them in the night, while they were sleeping. 

He convinced himself that it was strategic - there would be no sound, no way for them to intervene, no way for Luke to find out. But it was really because he could not bear the thought of seeing the life leave their eyes and their recognition glittering in their pupils. Their eyes would stay closed for the rest of eternity, and he had made sure of it.

There was no time for him to regret his actions or check if they were dead again. It didn't more how much potential Ben had, Luke was still the Jedi and would not hesitate to stop him in any way possible. The death of Luke Skywalker would have to wait until after Ben Solo was fully trained by another. That was where he was running to, guided only by a whisper.

When he had first started training as Jedi, the whispers from his childhood had subsided. For a while, he wondered if they had ever truly existed. Perhaps it was all a hallucination, brought on by the doubt that always maintained its fog in the back of his mind.

But when they returned, they were clearer than ever. The voice seemed more determined, far closer to him than ever before. It revealed itself as part of the dark side, offering Ben everything he ever wanted. The voice claimed he would have a place to belong, power beyond belief, and the ability to pursue what he'd craved since childhood - the path of Darth Vader. 

He didn't truly listen to it until it told him that the dark side used emotion to drive power. Ben had not realized this, as all he had known was his parents' side of the stories against the dark side and his Jedi training. He knew the Jedi code and how he was supposed to find tranquility instead of lashing out. The first line of the Jedi code was seared in his mind.

  
_There is no emotion, only peace._

It disturbed him to think he was meant to find inner peace on his own. He needed to rid himself of emotion to be a Jedi, or so it seemed. The very idea seemed maddening, leading him to doubt if he would ever achieve such a state. He had been known amongst the apprentices for his fits of rage if things didn't go the way he wished them to. Ben felt that if he had more control and less doubt, he would easily be the best of them all.

He was chastised for it by some, despised for it by others, and loathed for it by himself. It reminded him of how he had been a child terrified to come to train and learn to become a Jedi - somehow, he'd always known it would not work. It was not for him. No one except the whispers from the shadows understood that.

Sometimes he wished he was back with his family, with Han and Leia and stories and Feather Boy. But that life was gone. There was no way to return to it, not now.

Instead of giving in to his longing for the past, he chose to accept the guidance of the voice that had followed him since birth. Now that he had learned to hone his power, he was able to carry out what had been planned for him. His Jedi training would not go to waste, as it would be the first step on his training as something else - something better, something that suited him better. All he had to do was choose the dark side.

Ben gave in. Choosing a new path was far easier than attempting to suppress his emotions to become a Jedi.

The Jedi path was destined to fail, so he left it before it crumbled apart. But, as the voice never failed to remind him, he could not simply leave. Luke had already noticed the darkness forging its insidious path into Ben's soul, and he was taking every effort to prevent it from going further.

Thus, Ben had to embrace the dark side once and for all and leave to pursue his true calling in the dark side. The voice informed him to kill off his fellow apprentices. He hesitated at first. He had trained with these others for years, and even though many of them had infuriated or disappointed him at one time or another he could not deny that he cared for them.

But the whispers from the shadows were relentless - he was to overcome these attachments and murder the Jedi apprentices. They would become his enemies if they were to survive, and they would surely not hold back in trying to destroy him once he left for the dark side. They were to mean nothing to him. He would become the Jedi Killer and renounce his apprenticeship and all he had known. 

One night, Ben decided to stop putting it off. He went to his fellow apprentices, one by one, and killed them. His silent massacre spread through the apprentices like a disease. He tried to ignore his quivering hands and instead embrace the power that flowed through his soul as their lives faded away into eternal sleep. He cursed his nerves and the emotions he tried to push away.

And the doubt pushed at the back of his mind. Maybe he had done the wrong thing. He didn't have a clue what the voice was planning to make him do. He was given promises but no clear way to get to them. But his choice had already been made, the Jedi apprentices never to wake. 

He knew just one thing for certain - Ben Solo was dead. Along with every other Jedi apprentice, Ben Solo was murdered. 


	3. III.

Kylo Ren knew he was alone. There was no use in pretending otherwise. 

Everyone at Starkiller Base hated him. He knew that. It did not bother him. He did not need anything from them more than their actions in supporting the First Order. They were not alone in hating him. He had murdered and destroyed so much and so many, piling up enemies along with victims. So much hatred was cast toward him, and he just ignored it.

Perhaps that was why it was so strange to think that someone who loved him now stood before him.

He'd felt Han Solo's presence on Starkiller Base and knew what he must do. Supreme Leader Snoke had doubted his ability to do so. Still, this only managed to motivate Ren further. But as soon as he set eyes upon his father, the doubt started to consume him. 

Han Solo had called out his name - or, rather, what used to be his name. He was no longer Ben. He hadn't been Ben for years. But when he heard his father call out, he could feel a jolt within his chest, something akin to recognition. For a split second he wondered what would happen if his father called him Feather Boy once again.

How distant it seemed. How he longed for it once again.

"Take off that mask. You don't need it. Not here. Not with me."

It was a demand, not a request. But he did not submit so easily. He did not often remove his mask, as it was now as much a part of him as his lightsaber. For him, the mask _was_ Kylo Ren. 

"What do you think you'll see if I do take it off?" he asked. 

"The face of my son."

It was laughable, almost. But even so, Ren did not feel as if he was about to laugh. 

"Your son is gone. He was weak and foolish, like his father. So I destroyed him."

And he removed the mask. He watched as Han Solo made a small start. Han Solo had not seen this face for years. He had seen Feather Boy, a young Ben Solo. Now there was a man in front of him, practically a stranger.

But he recovered quickly, soon speaking out once again. 

"That's what Snoke wants you to believe. But it's not true. My son is alive. I'm looking at him right now."

His father moved toward him, and soon they were facing one another, closer than they had been since the boy had left all those years ago. It was strange, but it wasn't wrong.

"Snoke's using you for your power. When he's gotten everything he wants out of you, he'll crush you. You know it's true," said Han Solo. 

Ren found himself hesitating, something stirring within him and causing him to hold back. Of course he was right. Of course he had known. But wouldn't he end up crushed any other way?

"It's too late," he finally said.

"No, it's not. Never too late for the truth. Leave here with me. Come home."

If Kylo Ren was truly as strong as he convinced himself he was, then he would not have even considered Han Solo's offer. He would not think of what it meant. He knew what he had to do, and this was not a part of it. _Feeling_ was not a part of it.

He hadn't been allowed to feel anything for years. His training had taken it out of him. Feeling emotions was a weakness that got in the way of fighting and working and could not be permitted. 

But he had felt. Mostly rage. Sometimes confusion. And he forced it down, time and time again until it managed to erupt in a rampage, destroying anything in his path.

Now he felt tears welling up within his eyes, foreign and strange. 

As unusual as it was, he knew why he was on the verge of crying. He had suppressed it and tried to ignore it. The light side whispered to him in murmurs he could not comprehend, not in words, but in feelings. But it pulled, and pulled, and pulled. And the dark side pulled back. It was destroying him. 

The words spilled from his lips without his conscious thought.

"I'm being torn apart. I want...I want to be free of this pain."

How long had he waited to speak such words? It felt as if they had been perched on his tongue since his birth, stuck in his throat since before he could speak.

"I know what I have to do, but I don't know if I have the strength to do it. Will you help me?" he asked. He hardly knew what he was saying. All he knew was that it felt right. 

"Yes. Anything."

Kylo Ren dropped his mask on the bridge, letting the clatter shake the air. He was letting go. He would go. He would change. It would end. He took out his lightsaber, offering it to his father to take away. Han Solo seemed surprised by this, but he did not hesitate in reaching out and trying to take it away. 

But just as Ren was ready to release his grasp, he glanced up to see that the light was extinguished. A sun had been put out, and Starkiller Base was charged and ready to fire. The planet, now bathed in darkness, quivered as it prepared to launch an attack and destroy the Resistance in one strike. 

And it was powerful. It was everything Ren had ever been promised. 

His grip tightened on the lightsaber. He knew what he had to do. The call from the light side had intensified, but now the dark side was taking him back. He wrenched the lightsaber from his hands and then activated it, straight through Han Solo's heart.

"Thank you."

As the life escaped him, Han Solo brought his hand to his son's face. Their eyes met, and though Ren's countenance was not altered, something within him did change. 

He had ended more lives than anyone cared to count. But he had killed none face to face, none eye to eye. Never like this. He could see right into his father's eyes. That had never happened before. He had never let it happen before. He watched the glimmer of life disappear from those eyes who had only loved him from the beginning. 

It was not the first time he'd killed someone he loved. He was certain it would not be the last.

When he withdrew the lightsaber, Han Solo fell. His body would be destroyed as it fell into the center of the planet, never to be recovered. Ren did not need to watch in order to know that. 

It was done, but he was not at ease. If anything, he felt numb. He did not understand. This was supposed to be it. No more pull from the light. He had embraced the dark side, destroyed his father and his father's love along with him. 

But instead he ended up nearly paralyzed, not realizing he was being shot until after he had collapsed on the bridge. It was not over yet. He wasn't dead. He wasn't dark. 

He was more lost than ever.


End file.
